Vehicles, such as pick-up trucks, are commonly employed with a cargo box or bed that may be used to transport various items, such as smaller wheeled vehicles. Examples of such vehicles include motorcycles, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), four-wheelers (quads), as well as garden and lawn tractors. However, the distance between a floor of a truck bed and the ground is often problematic in loading heavy items, such as the smaller wheel vehicles, as the distance is normally too great to drive the wheeled vehicle directly into the cargo space. To address this issue, it is known to use ramps to bridge the distance between the ground and the truck bed by forming a durable support structure to drive or move heavy objects, such as wheeled vehicles, up and into the cargo space.
Traditionally, when a driver wants to load a wheeled vehicle into the truck bed, he or she releases a tailgate then extends a pair of ramps between the truck bed and the ground. The ramps have a connection end seated against the tailgate at one end and a loading end positioned against the ground, creating about a 45 degree or smaller angle with the ground. Once the ramps are in place, the driver loads the wheel vehicle into the bed of the truck along the ramps. However, in many known connection arrangements of the ramps to the tailgate, the configuration of the connection end of the ramps limit the placement of the loading end of the ramps to ensure that the connection of the ramp is stable for purposes of loading. For example, many known ramp connections prohibit the ramp from being placed at an angle greater than 60 degrees with respect to the ground as the connection end of the ramp become unseated from the tailgate, or simply lift off of the tailgate.
Further, a wheeled vehicle (or other heavy equipment) can take up much of the room in the truck bed, leaving little room for additional materials to be stored in the truck bed. However, it is important to take the ramps to the next location so that the driver can unload the wheeled vehicle or other heavy items. Simply laying the ramps in the truck bed or partially on the cargo in the truck bed can be problematic. For example, during transport, if unsecured, the ramps can fall off the truck and become lost, or the ramps can move around inside of the truck bed and damage the equipment being transported or even damage the ramps themselves. Therefore, storage of the ramps is an issue.
Therefore there is a need for an improved ramp assembly that provides a stable connection in a variety of positions, as well as a need for an improved storage of the ramps when not in use.